Probably one of the biggest rumors leading up to the Windows Phone 8 announcement was some speculation that Qualcomm would lose its exclusive status as the sole SoC vendor for Windows Phone handsets. As a recap, WP7 and WP7.5 started out with QSD8x50 65nm Snapdragon, and later moved on to 45nm single core MSM8x55 and MSM7x30.

Today, Microsoft announced that Qualcomm will be the sole provider of dual core SoCs for initial launch devices from hardware partners Nokia, Huawei, Samsung, and HTC. There's some wiggle room in there for what comes after that first phase, but for now Qualcomm still holds that exclusive spot.

Update: Qualcomm stated in a note to us that the initial Windows Phone 8 devices will use a Snapdragon S4 Plus SoC. I asked for clarification about which specific SoC this is, and found out it is indeed MSM8960 inside - dual core krait with Adreno 225.

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Really? The iPhone fosters more competition? Since when can you buy an iPhone with a different CPU? Or a different GPU? And don't tell me that just buy the most recent iPhone that it is more powerful then the previous ones...that is exactly what is happening here.

Android is the only Smartphone player out there that is pushing the CPU / GPU / resource requirements through the roof. iOS and WP try to make do with a stable hardware platform that is designed to eek out every performance bit they can. Plus they set the bar so that you will never have a Windows Phone or an iOS device below a certain level of performance. There is no such thing as an equivalent of the $99 Android tablets that had a slow single core, low amounts of ram, and a resistive touch screen on those platforms.Reply

I don't get your argument here. I'm not an iPhone fan, but I am sure thankful they're around. They absolutely foster competition. You think Samsung and HTC would be pushing Android devices out with these large, high resolutions, beautiful displays if it weren't for trying to compete for iPhone customers?

I would never get an iPhone largely because it doesn't have a replaceable battery and that is a deal breaker for me. But I certainly think that the iPhone being around has something to do with me being able to buy my Nexus.Reply

Yes because large high rez displays are not something apple makes or invents, they buy it from other companies. In fact apple stifles competition because they contract so that they are the only ones who can get those displays which means that android makers cant buy them. If MS did this same thing with laptops the would be investigated for anti trust violations. Reply

In a few months Krait will be losing to Cortex A15. Windows 8 ARM version is going to further intensify the fight. And they are already battling the likes of Tegra 3 and Samsung Exynos on the Android Segment. And they are already losing in the GPU department. Is this lack of competition?

And don't forget how Qualcomm S3 was thrown out of the non-American markets due to Cortex A9 being more powerful.

And don't forget Android is still a much much bigger platform that Windows Phone. And to get a proper market share Qualcomm will have to focus on all three markets.

And I bet that if Windows Phone 8's market share increases substantially Microsoft is gonna allow others as well.Reply

It's not worse than iOS or Android.For eg.iPhone 3GS doesn't have siri even though it had iOS 5.Devices which were released prior to android 2.0 and got android 2.0 did not get 3d app drawer and Dalvik VM.Reply

All original WP7 devices have already have two major updates. They'll probably all get WP 7.8 too, which will bring many relevant parts of WP8 that make sense for the older single core devices. Really this is no worse than Android, and actually is a bit more consistent across different devices/carriers.Reply

Most phones got the upgrade from Android 2.1 to 2.1 and 2.3. Just as WP7 to WP7.5.Many phones get a upgrade from 2.3 to 4.0, not a single phone gets an upgrade from WP7.5 to WP8. (WP7.8 isn't really comparable compared to WP8) So if they buy a flagship WP7.5 phone right now, in half a year they can throw it in the trash, because future apps won't run on it. Great.Reply